


these hands that heal

by yuuki_Illene



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Humor, Low Chaos (Dishonored), Snark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-01-25 15:46:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12535320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuuki_Illene/pseuds/yuuki_Illene
Summary: The physician meets the Whalers by some unfortunate circumstance, but loyalty at every stage is achoiceshe willingly makes. Criminals or heretics, this is home.A series of drabbles (or longer) about a life with the Whalers, against witches and assassination attempts. Dunwall is changing, and she watches through a vapour mask.





	1. these hands that heal (are of use)

**\- 1824 -**

 

 **THE KNIFE OF DUNWALL** walks into her shop like he owns it.

An unaffected frown rests on his face and wretches the scar that curves down his eye and into his high cheekbones. For a moment, Indira is almost disgusted but the workmanship that previously went into healing the wound, because the unevenness of the fading pockmarks of stitches is telling of the amateur who had fumbled to get the job done. But Daud, despite his infamous reputation, was something to look at, she concedes.

Apart from his facial cicatrix, wrinkles cut into his skin to emphasise his stern expression. They form shadows around his steely grey eyes to make him the harrowing; a sharpened blade in the tenebrosity of the night, bloodied by the burgundy red coat he wears. With each measured step he uses to close the distance between them both, the force and silence he thunders screams “danger” just like the pouches of hidden weapons he strap around in body in browns.

Shivers curl low in her spine, and Indira’s fingers wrap around her chosen scalpel for comfort.

“Are you hired to kill me as well?” asks the physician, internally cursing at the tremble she hears in her voice.

Her answer comes in the form of an amused quirk of his thin lips before he replies, “No. But that can be arranged if that is what you wish.” Daud’s blade is still in his hands after all, primed for another kill, lined and dripping with the crimson of her enemies which lie exanimate around her shop.

Indira supposes it was an asinine question, considering how he has just saved her from imminent danger. But give her some respite; just minutes ago, a street gang had burst into her property with every intention to hurt her and now they are corpses, life returning into the Void, visages suspended in soundless screams and dead eyes.

By his hands, no less, for she does not afflict death but saves most from the irreversible error. Where her hands are trained to heal, his similarly calloused ones were honed to kill. The Knife of Dunwall makes it an _art_ with the way he descends upon the thugs, cleanly slicing their jugular veins. It makes a mess of her floorboards and it will be a pain to get them out of what isn’t linoleum but Indira prefers them being the mess rather than herself. So she tells him that much.

“I rather like living,” Indira informs Daud politely as she discreetly stashes her tool under her desk. It feels warm compared to her skin. “But I’ll keep you in my contacts if the need arises, Knife of Dunwall. And I am supposing I am expected to pay for your services?” she sweeps her blue eyes over the dead men in her space, “How much do you charge?”

“Work for me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Work for me,” he repeats for the sake of her mortification. “My men have told me of your skill, Miss Indira. Said you worked on neutral grounds. That so long as your patients paid you the suitable price, you would treat them.”

“That is correct,” Indira confirms. “But as your men have said, I work for no sides.”

“And how long can that last?” He gestures at the thugs who were once a threat. “Your neutrality has served you well thus far. But if the Hatter’s attack means anything, it is a signal that you have to take sides to survive. And I’m prepared to offer you a proposition, Miss Indira. Work for the Whalers as its physician and we will provide you the food, shelter, protection and resources you need in exchange. We could use more hands like yours.”

“And if I decline?”

“A learned mind like yours knows better than to do that.”

Her lips purse involuntarily at the truth. Indira is not stupid or delirious enough to attempt to offend the Master Assassin of Dunwall and she knows rejection moves along the lines of said stupidity. Carefully, she weighs the extent she benefits from the deal and it is not an unpleasant thought that she would remain mostly untouchable if she works under an infamy.

His preceding reputation will protect her better than neutrality and perhaps, it would bring comfort to the paranoia she has survived on. Dunwall is by no means lawless; (lawlessness belongs to the Pandyssian continent) but the bullet and knife wounds she has had to tend to underlines a truth that isn’t truly safe either. There is something sinister breeding… And a sanctum is what she needs.

So she lifts her right hand to shake on the proposition.

“I’ll work for the Whalers.”

(It is the beginning from an end.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what do you think? Is this good? Bad? Should I continue on Indira and the Whalers?  
> Tell me what you think ^^ Feedback is always appreciated.
> 
> I'll probably cover the main events and others, although the latter will probably in a non-linear fashion, since I can't guarantee that I won't want to add random scenes in between. It'll be...an analysis of sorts. Of the people in Dunwall... basically anything which comes to mind.
> 
> I'm open to suggestions too :D


	2. these roots she has (knows no home)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Indira realises she has nothing to miss.

_**-1824-** _

 

 **SETTLING IN** with a group of assassins is understandably nerve-wracking.

Indira still questions the decision she made every day she wakes up in an apartment that is not in her shop, and she stares at the crack ceiling and wonders where she went wrong. She sees the boards peeking from the jagged edges of paint, the wood dark and aged, feeling like she is out of touch with the world. That if she glances out of the window – it’s on her left and not the right – she would see an endless space of no skies, where otherworldly beings reigned and the world can be twisted upside down by their command.

It is quite hard to _settle_ when her neighbours could slit her throat without her noticing it, and their soft footsteps at twilight always startle her awake. Indira has an inkling that they do it for her benefit (or to find fun in her misery); because she has seen them prowl the rooftops and streets, and they can be as silent as a black cat which slinks across districts unseen.

 _But this isn’t bad,_ Indira admits.

The Whalers wouldn’t hurt her ( _probably_ ), and they have been rather nice. Cordial even. Which kind of makes sense in hindsight because no one ever wants to be on the bad side of the person who might save their lives. There often is some sort of respect which is merited to physicians and inventors and she isn’t above making use of it to have a better life.

And for a man who was well-known for his violence in the streets, Daud had been surprisingly accommodating with her request to have a lab at the base.

The physician is quite grateful for that – the Knife of Dunwall might have uprooted her from her old home but he has tried to make sure she was comfortable in new soils. It would have been regrettable if she had to abandon all her old projects to conform.

But Indira thinks it might have been interest on his part as well; she has seen the curious looks he gave her when she was balancing in the relatively harmless Pandyssian plants and the jars of desiccated herbs into her given room. Dunwall wasn’t as well-versed as the likes of Tyvia and Pandyssia in terms of herbalism and botany and they still aren’t, for the harsh winters the Isle was prone to often hindered the growth of said plant life.

Having parents who hailed from the Pandyssian continent and subsequently fled westwards to Tyvia for refuge, it was only natural that Indira inherited basic knowledge on the subjects. The rest of her knowledge were from the books she could obtain but she’s not impatient. She would willingly wait for the publications rather than venture back to the continent after hearing its fate.

There are only ruined temples and runes of the old there; unmanned and teeming with abandoned relics once pandemic had taken most of its population. Those who were unaffected ran, and those who couldn’t are presumably petering out. Indira has no desires to see what becomes of the last of them – all sick and weak in their terminal civilisation – nor does she have the courage to go on an expedition to further herself. Curiosity is not something she lacks, but she treasures self-preservation more than knowledge.

Indira has never known the continent any way, and there is no attachment to be had beyond an intellectual pursuit. She daresay she was more Tyvian than Pandyssian, seeing how she was raised in the influence of their culture and tastes.

Perhaps she was none, she continues to muse, because she can’t say she misses Tyvia either. Gristol loved Tyvian imports of wines, fabrics and cuisines, and there is little to be ‘homesick’ about when she could find them in local stores.

“The beauty of free trade,” she supposes, mentally referring herself to the theory which David Ricardo had put forward recently.

Snapping away from such thoughts, Indira sighs as she taps mindless patterns on the desk to occupy her twitching fingers. She could use some wine right now, except she doesn’t know where the cellar was and the Whaler’s territory was a big place for a single woman.

She sighs again.

_This will take some time to get used to._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly had no idea what I was writing, but this fiction is more exploratory than anything else, so its okay? xD
> 
> And yes, "the beauty of free trade" which Indira refers to is an actual theory by David Ricardo in 1817, called _The Theory of Comparative Advantage_ which explains the benefits of trade as the product of it.


	3. the hand he offers (is surprisingly kind)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Indira contemplates about Daud's nature.
>
>>  
>> 
>> _His hands do violence. But there is a different dream in his heart._  
> 

_**\- 1824 -** _

 

 **INDIRA SWEARS** it was not her intention to stumble upon this scene.

But in hindsight, she is glad she did.

After all, it is not every day she gets to see the Knife of Dunwall surrounded by the children he saved, all of them vying for his attention like how a pack of puppies would. Fuelled by their guileless felicity for their saviour, they skip around him as they pepper him with questions and updates on their training, and they hang onto his every answer, similar to how Overseers hung onto the seven scriptures of the Everyman.

 _They live on his acknowledgement,_ Indira realises as one of the younger children - _Ryan?_ \- preen under the man’s tentative ruffle of his brown hair. It isn’t far-fetched to say that the children loved him either, if the gleam of affection she sees isn’t a hallucination.

And Indira should _worry_. But the word she chooses to use is “should”; it’s an option, not a must. The physician might have only worked for the Whalers for two months, but her small workload was evidence that Daud cares for his men.

Incidents which needed her skillset were sparse and in between, and it mostly consisted of training accidents and some unfortunate cuts. Which was impressive, considering the jobs that the Whalers took. They ranged from infiltrating high-security places to steal or kill, and yet most of them come out unscathed.

While a fraction of the credit goes to the arcane bond which gifted them agility and the ability to traverse, Indira knows much of it still goes towards good assigning skills and vigorous training. The leader of the Whalers always tried to make sure that his men were in their best condition before they were sent on a mission, and he only employed them when they were suited to the job’s description. They might be a profit-driven organization to continue the upkeep of their base but Daud isn’t avaricious enough to send his men to their early deaths via missions which were clearly out of their league.

Daud sees each and every Whaler as an investment - like wine which becomes better as it ages in tannin and plants cultivated in the right fertilisers. He ensures that all of his men receive proper instruction and nutrition as they grow into their roles as assassins, and sets strict criteria for their skills to meet before they could transition from novices to masters. He consults his advisors to make certain it is the right decision, and it doesn’t hurt him to have a third or a fourth opinion.

The Knife of Dunwall isn’t a disagreeable employer to work under. He is fair.

“Have you ever thought about changing your profession?” Someone deliberates near her ear in a drawl as she watches Daud guide the child’s hand into the orthodox grip for a dagger. “You are quite skilled at making yourself scarce, Indira.”

Indira jumps at the sound, and it nearly scares her out of the corner she is ensconced in. She glares at Rulfio who is sporting a smug grin as he towers over her by a half a head. Her hands close around the hem of her uniform to calm her heartbeat, and she reminds herself not to hit him.

“I have no intention to change my profession.” says. Indira in a steady voice. “But if I do consider it later down the road, you'll be the first to know.”

Rulfio grunts at the reply. “So? Is it a new hobby of yours to stalk our leader? Are you an admirer now?”

“By the Void, _no_.”

“Why do you look so disgusted by the idea?” He laughs, nearly choking on the cigarette smoke he was swallowing. “Daud has his fair share of admirers amongst the nobility. He’s fuckable.”

“And you are the crudest nobility I have ever met,” Indira retorts. “Tell me, Sir Rulfio, do you happen to be one of his admirers as well? Or do you _run_ the group of admirers?”

“He lost my fancy when I stopped being nobility,” he tells her seriously, although the cigarette at the edge of his smirk ruins the effect. “And ‘course I run it. Have you seen the pups I have to train?”

“Fair point. Do you think they would follow if we made Master Daud a religion?”

“That’s assuming they haven’t.”

“You think there’s a shrine somewhere?” asks Indira incredulously.

“Outsider’s shrine… Daud’s shrine… what’s the difference?”

Indira contemplates his words for a beat. “That is true,” she concedes. 

“The pups worship him,” Rulfio says it like it is a natural phenomenon. Respect seeps into his lowered tone unconsciously, and from the cigarette which was slowly burns forgotten between his fingers, maybe his own loyalty enthrals him. “I reckon anyone would if they were picked off the streets and given a definitive place to live instead of the sewers.”

Indira takes a peek at the Knife of Dunwall again. He was dragged into showcasing the Traverse now, and he does it begrudging with exasperated grey eyes. He doesn’t slouch, he just raises his hands and makes it shine gold. Immediately after, he dissipates into ashes of shadows before appearing again, the whispered screams of the void momentarily filling in his absence.

“He adores them too,” she opines quietly as she slouches back to the wall. “Or he wouldn’t tolerate them.”

“He’s a damn softie for them although he doesn’t like showing it,” Rulfio scoffs as he snubs his cigarette under his boots. Having been with the Whalers since its inception, he was bound to know Daud’s nature well - his peeves, his favourite brands of items and of course, the things he finds happiness in.

“That’s rich coming from you.”

“I’m starting to understand why you make yourself scarce and hole up in that lab of yours, Indira. You’re terrible at social interactions.”

“Well, I suppose I should inform you that proletarians like us are not privileged enough to attend soirées to cultivate such skills, _Lord_ Rulfio.”

“Indira?”

She hums.

“Shut the fuck up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slightly longer one this time. I always wanted to see how Daud's men see Daud so... :)  
> What do you think?


	4. these things in store (tell a story)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Because nothing ever is what they seem on the surface._

_**\- 1824 -** _

 

 **IN HINDSIGHT** , Indira really shouldn’t have agreed Montgomery’s request to getting the miscellaneous supplies.

 _Because this is impossible,_ she thinks as she freezes at the sheer monstrosity of items in front of her. Indira usually wasn’t prone to profanity, well, she might be developing an inclination from spending more time with the Whalers, but seriously. _What the **fuck** is this?_

Indira isn’t sure where she should begin. In the warehouse adjacent to the main headquarters (which is another warehouse but skewed towards archival needs), this was _teeming_ with objects. At the turn of her head, she sees edged-gold chests brimming with articles of clothing (how did they even tether it here), be it frilly excrescence, feathery hats or some sort of animal disfigured into apparels and really shouldn’t exist. There’s something that looks oddly like artificial plant life being put together as a sorry excuse for a costume, but that was of the milder oddities. Questioning _that_ would lead to a downward spiral of more unanswered questions, and she was just the looking at tip of the chest.

Literally.

And it is quite apparent from the numberless amount of paintings and ornamental swords that the Whalers, like magpies, were very fond of stripping nobles of what proclaims their heritage. She studies the portraits of succeeding generations of some Lord Pompeux and their hereditary large foreheads and afflictive bolus noses, the cavalry armours of knighthood which have not been polished for years before she carefully pries open a velvet box which nested a huge cut of a blue-grey gemstone.

Indira narrows her blue eyes. _Is that what I think it is?_

Because if that is the missing and stolen Hope Diamond, Indira was taking it to sell it for a fortune. If she was frugal enough, she could live off the sum for the rest of her life, and it probably wouldn't matter considering how Daud’s treasury was loaded with pieces of similar value.

Chester, who has been silent ever since he led her to the storage, snickers.

“Don't even think about takin’ that, lass.”

“I wasn't thinking that,” Indira automatically replies.

“And I believe you like how I believed every other person who's said that,” he says sagely with a pointed look which she returns with equal offence. “Here's some advice on lyin’, lass. Don't look away and don't reply too fast. Gives you away.”

After his criticism, Chester grunts and gestures for her to follow. “Anyway, you’re in the wrong part of the storage. That’s fer the kleptomaniacs amongst the Whalers. They collect everythin’ from clothes to garbage… And it went of control. It’s a good thing that what you want is o’er there.”

The other side of the warehouse was comparative well-organized - with shelves, boxes and labels, nothing like the previous shipwreck. It was understandably so, since the objects here had to be handled with more delicacy. She browses through the spring razors, grenades, the assortment of ammunitions and the rack of daggers and swords. She notices that the weaponry lacked anything that was longer than a sabre, since it didn’t fit the Whaler’s niche of stealth.

“Your syringes and needles are prolly mixed with the darts,” Chester tells Indira as he ducks into another aisle. “They tend to stick those things together after a haul cus’ they’re lazy.”

“Then what are you searching for Chester?”

“Just checkin’ if those lazy arses tossed any with the bullets.”

Glass and metal clink together as they dig in their respective boxes, and Indira carefully places all the medical tools she finds aside. _They’re still in usable condition_ , she inspects with satisfaction, even though she has to do the extra work of sterilising them. A dusty storage scarcely allows for hygiene with the all dust and bacteria settling, and neither of the Whaler’s physicians were fond of their patients contracting an infection.

They were more painfully to deal with, more often than not, because it was difficult to cure a body that was rebelling against itself. 

Her vision blurs slightly when she dips her head further into the box. Indira knew these scents. She has smelled it before because she administers it to induce sleep. “Opium and belladonna?” She asks out loud, confused by the scents that linger on the darts.

“We use the mix to make people sleep,” Chester answers, wry. “Most of us don’t want to kill more than necessary. Guards and civs… they ain’t our targets. No need for ‘em to come under the crossfire.”

The physician stills briefly at the admission, letting the glass cylinder slide off her fingers before it tilts forward at the metal tip. Dropping it with a small clack, she stares inside the disorderly and mismatched flechettes. “I wasn’t aware of that.”

“That’s cus’ you don’t ask about the missions when the men come to you after being injured.”

“I don't ask because it's not my place to do so, Chester If they don’t want to speak about how they got their injuries, I should respect that. My job is to heal, not overstep my boundaries and open wounds.” And that’s the half-truth; she has promised Daud her silence unless she was seeking an early death. And silence was easier to keep when she knew less.

“Smart lass,” he murmurs his approval as he shoves a box back in place. “We’re cold blooded murderers, it’s true. But that don’t mean we enjoy killin’. Blood on our hands… Havin’ to separate a fam’ly, it’s all nasty business. The less we do em’, the better. Makes it easier to sleep at night.”

Soon after, he stands up to place a handful of needles in her outstretched palm. What was once stacked like a pyramid in his grasp falls apart in her hand, and it is strange because Chester’s touch is kind. Soft. Nothing like what she presumes.

There is no violence behind his calloused fingertips (what was she expecting?) and his brown eyes were not obsidian black like the monsters she has imagined. 

He’s quite human.

Like her. Like the civilians who roam the streets, or like the aristocrats in the paintings. While some do normal jobs or rule to survive, the Whalers merely have a different methodology. They try to make the best out of the cards life has dealt them with, they’re irrevocably human and they hurt and feel—

And these thoughts forces Indira to clench her fists painfully tight, letting the tip of the needles pierce her fragile skin.

She has never been more wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Attempting to find what "plant-based" concoction was used to make a sleep dart was a challenge - mostly because they weren't time accurate (namely sodium thiopental and phencyclidine which were made in the 1900s) or they don't work in sleep dart context (ether, chloroform and nitrous oxide).  
> Belladonna and opium, specifically morphine, is the closest I can get.
> 
>  _Pompeux_ means pompous in Old French. I couldn't help it x)
> 
> Yeah, this entire chapter is dedicated to humanising the Whalers. What do you think?


	5. these names and titles (need meaning or are nothing)

_**-1824-** _

 

“ **HOW WOULD YOU** rather I address you?” Indira asks idly when Daud steps into her office as one of the stops of his usual rounds.

 

While he has many men, he finds comfort in understanding what the base and his Whalers need personally. A habit that clings stubbornly from the time he first established the organisation and had a lack of manpower, many suppose, but it is one he finds useful.

 

The question makes the Knife of Dunwall pause, eyebrows creasing upwards.

 

“Master?” She tilts her head to draw his silver gaze. The question at the end of her title sounds mocking almost, even if it was not her intention, because the physician scarcely sounds like she is truthfully bending to his authority. It is devoid of the usual devotion or exasperated loyalty he hears in the tone of his other Whalers, and the revelation is surprisingly grating.

 

“Sir?” She tests another with her tongue. It is less severe but the word still rolls off weirdly, this subservience, like she was pulling an unused muscle.

 

“Don’t use those terms if you don’t mean it,” Daud replies gruffly. 

 

Ice blue eyes crinkle. “But that’s what your men call you, do they not? Shouldn’t I do the same?”

 

“The difference between you and them, Indira, is that they pledge their loyalty. Their address is an extension of what they believe.”

 

“Well, you stole mine,” the physician points out, feeling recklessly confident and completely justified in bringing up the terms of her employment.

 

His answering scowl cuts the scar which runs horizontal of his face deeply. He’s quickly tiring of this conversation. Perhaps bringing her under his wing might have been a mistake on his part. “I care little of what you call me, so long as you do not touch upon insults, Miss Indira. Your distaste can stay in the depths of your mind and in the silence of your office but care that it doesn’t breed contempt to the other men.”

 

“I’m not unprofessional,” she answers stiffly. Offense at her abilities smooths out her expression into placid compliance that his Whalers show but a cold fire burns in the darkness of her pupils, a stark reminder of what had drawn him to make the proposition in the midst of dead thugs.

 

Her sentence then drifts in her hesitance, and she ends with a, “... Daud.”

 

His fingers uncurl from his cruello red jacket. It’ll suffice. It seems natural enough, at least.

 

Briskly, he nods, and strides out of her office. “Indira.”


End file.
